A fire that burned around a fifth of ASOS’s warehouse stock rounded off a challenging month for what was a darling of the small cap market not that long ago.

June brought ASOS's second profit warning of 2014 and saw AIM’s biggest share capitulate to lows of around £27.40 per share.

The online clothing retailer’s demise leaves the FTSE AIM 100 as London’s worst performing segment in 2014, with the benchmark this week falling another 1 per cent to 3,367 - it has now fallen about 12 per cent in the year to date.

Challenging month: A fire 'compromised' around £22million of stock at ASOS main warehouse (Pictured: ASOS distribution centre near Barnsley, South Yorkshire)

ASOS is responsible for about half of that fall, according to City broker Liberum, though setting the downtrodden retailer aside the benchmark still underperformed the FTSE 250 by 4 per cent.

Natural resource stocks were among the few to outperform blue-chip counterparts, behind junior pharmaceuticals and real estate, which outpaced larger rivals with growth of 40 per cent and 31 per cent respectively.

Shares rose as much as 52 per cent after breakthrough well testing results proved the 200million barrel Lancaster discovery commercial.

At 9,800 barrels per day oil, flow rates achieved by the newly drilled horizontal well were far better than expected and crucially exceeded the 4,000 barrels a day commerciality threshold.

For the discovery itself it is an emphatic success, though at the same time it has broader significance because it opens up a new type of oil play for the UK and the North Sea.

Lancaster, located in the West of Shetland area, is what is known as a fracture basement discovery.

The extraction of oil from these geological features is increasingly common in other parts of the world - notably in Vietnam, Libya and Yemen - but it has yet to be properly assessed in the North Sea and the UK.

Lancaster discovery could just be the ‘tip of the iceberg’ for the UK’s newest oil play, according to Hurricane boss Robert Trice, who believes basement reservoirs could in time prove strategically important for Britain.

Meanwhile, Irish oil firms were keen to remind investors that negotiations over farm-out deals in the Celtic Sea continue to make progress.

Providence Resources’ chief executive Tony O’Reilly, on Friday, reiterated that talks are ongoing with international oil companies wanting to partner in the Celtic Sea Barryroe development and asserted his confidence that a breakthrough will come in the near future.

At the same time, Lansdowne, which will farm-out part of its interest as part of a Providence deal, said it remained optimistic a deal could be done.

Broad significance: Hurricane Energy's 200million barrel Lancaster discovery opens up a new type of oil play for the UK and the North Sea

Separately, at an industry conference in Paris, Fastnet said it was confident of securing a farm-out for its Celtic Sea acreage within three to six months.

Potential deals were also talk of the town in the small cap mining sector, with shares in Kenmare advancing by more than one-fifth after a takeover approach from Iluka Resources.

The Kenmare board, with the support of 19.05 per cent stakeholder M&G Investment Management, has rejected the proposed offer from the Australian firm, which was on the basis of 0.036 new Iluka shares for each Kenmare share. On Thursday, when it was announced, the offer valued Kenmare at 16.8p per share or £467million.

In Brazil, momentum is building behind AIM-listed Horizonte Mining’s flagship Araguaia nickel project – which has now been put on a ‘fast track’ through the permitting phase.

Less than a week after submitting a social and environmental impact report, the mine developer has received the Seal of Priority from the state of Para´s Department of Industry, Commerce and Mining.

This essentially means Araguaia will receive priority treatment from the various regulatory, environmental and administrative organisations.